Areeb Majeed, a youth from Kalyan who went to Iraq with three friends in the hope of joining militant group the Islamic State (IS), has revealed to National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers the identities of his handlers and the local contacts who helped him with the necessary logistics to get to Iraq.
NIA officers said that since Majeed is not 'sharing' much, they are contemplating conducting a narco analysis test on him.
"Majeed was grilled for several hours on Sunday, after which he revealed the names of his handlers and the local contacts who radicalised him and his three other friends here, and helped them fly to Iraq. We are verifying his claims and are trying to locate these local contacts," said an NIA official. The officer refused to divulge the names Majeed had given on grounds that it would affect the probe.
The Kalyan youth, whose opinion of the IS changed when he was made to clean and collect water instead of going to war, also told his interrogators that he was subjected to physical torture by some of the IS members. "We might get scientific tests done on him as we suspect that he is sharing only limited information about his visit and the IS members during questioning. The tests will help us extract more information from him," said the official.
Majeed, who was earlier presumed to be dead, was arrested on Friday following his return to Mumbai. He spent nearly six months in Iraq. In May this year, Majeed and his three friends Shaheem Tanki, Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel left India to go to Iraq under the pretext of going on a pilgrimage.
According to the police, the four engineering students flew to Baghdad on May 25 as part of a group of pilgrims to visit religious shrines in Iraq. The next day, Majeed had called his family from Baghdad and apologised for having left without informing them.
On August 26, Tanki called up Majeed's family and told them that their son had become a 'martyr', claiming that the latter died fighting for IS in Syria. Accordingly the next day, Majeed's family performed 'Janaza-e-gayabana' (prayers for the dead) in Kalyan.
According to intelligence sources, Majeed became jittery about the IS when he found that there was no place for teaching of the Holy Quran in the IS camps. He then somehow convinced his handlers that he needed to undergo treatment for an injury he had sustained, and reached Turkey, from where he contacted his parents.
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